@ home, @ large

On yer bike!

Earlier this year we bought a pair of e-bikes to take touring with us. To further that end, we also bought a tow-bar mounted bike carrier. We haven’t actually taken the bikes anywhere at all due to being unable to find a cover that fitted them properly and then because we agreed the part-ex of the Hymer and couldn’t add any miles to it whilst waiting for the new van. We did go out cycling locally, the once…

Fast Forward: >> the new van has of course got rear doors and it seems that even if we fitted a tow bar that the carrier we have won’t work for us because it wouldn’t drop down far enough to get those doors open.

We looked at an alternative solution. As the bikes are too heavy for a door-mounted bike carrier we considered a very swanky arrangement of a bike carrier that is chassis-mounted and swings clear before the doors are opened. Very expensive but even more problematic was the payload issue. They are very heavy bikes.

Fast Forward a bit more >>>>> we decided to buy folding bikes that we can carry in our luggage space.

After intensive research, Mr Snail elected to purchase a pair of Gocycles. He found that the main French dealership in Nantes had a couple of lightly-damaged ex-demo bikes at a slightly advantageous price. He bought them online but travelled over to Nantes last week to collect them. We had intended to go away for a couple of nights but the heat and pet issues led me to stay home with the furries and he went for a single overnighter and returned next day with the bikes.

Mr Snail’s is grey and mine is white

We have been out on them twice and found them serviceable and also manageable on some of the rougher surfaces around our home. We have also been out on the earlier purchases because we now have to decide whether to sell them or not. We have the option to retain the sturdier bikes for riding around the lanes at home and just keep the folding bikes in the van for use when we are away. So, comparisons and evaluations are needed. There’s also the old price/usage consideration to factor in to the decision-making process. Not to mention the depreciation on a pair of only-used-twice bikes!

Both bikes had around 500 Km on the odometer when we bought them and we have added 25 Km to that on a couple of local rides.

Decisions have been deferred until we return from Italy. We shall have to see how much use we make of the folding bikes once we are out on the road.

The big selling point for us were the docking stations – the wheels were a surprise but are actually very useful for manoeuvring in and out of the vanThe fact that the docking stations have a zip-on protective cover came as a happy surprise for usA pair of bikes fits happily at the rear of the boot……with sufficient room left to stack a couple of 42 litre Really Useful Boxes

Doesn’t appear to be much space left for the hoped-for Cadac…

We are busy packing for the Italy trip. I shall report back when we return.

I have a couple of local short trips to complete writing-up. I hope to get these done before we leave.